I don’t apologize for tangents. I’m trying to give the best answer possible with regards to the subject of how should I gear my ranger. The real answer to your question is it literally doesn’t matter. However you gear a ranger, excluding a fungi tunic, sky cloak, or epics, will not be noticed by anyone - yourself included.

Fungi is more important than haste. Make sure that’s covered.

Is CoF worth it for a ranger, when you can get get CoCW for 20k less? I think CoF is the better item but I think getting a CoCW for 20k less is a great way to go for a ranger. You'll level so fast with 36% haste and fungi, that you'll be able to get that swift wind before you know it. On some classes like monk and warrior, you will need to join a full blown raiding guild at 60 to get a better haste item than 36%. So the extra 20k for 50hp might be worth when your warrior or monk alt is going to wear that item for a very long time as their haste item. But ranger isn't one of those classes. Going with CoCW is a fine decision.

I would think 36% is worthwhile if you plan on either taking a very long time to get to 46 or plan on getting to 46 in a very short period of time. This is assuming you plan to sell the cloak immediately after epic. 21/22% is my preference.

Something you should consider is that CoF is universally desirable. CoCW isn’t. This translates to harder to sell when you’re done with a CoCW.

Cecily makes a good point that almost all of these types of posts seem to neglect.

You're not losing money by buying an item and replacing it later. If you're level 1 and buy a CoF or RBB or whatever twink item to speed your route to 46, it isn't wasted when you get there and want your epic. Items like that have retained their value for years and they aren't likely to decline given the insane number of alts rolled and twinked every day.

You're overlooking the lost 20% daily compound interest that you would have made on the value of those items by flipping like bergers in EC, DJ!

Since you are starting at level 1 and going from there, I'd say the best combo will be Spiked Seahorse Hide Belt and Heirophant's Cloak.

It's 2% less haste than the big cloaks, but you are getting 8 to all stats and a base 100 hp/mana. That alone is going to be very strong especially at the early levels on a hybrid.

Even after you get your epic, these will be very strong until you replace them with stronger raid items, if you plan to go that far.

Meh, got my CoF not even 2 years ago when it was 75k, it's around 50k nowadays.

It’s a risk you take with high value items, but CoF retained value better than most things on the server. AFAIK, it’s been 75-100k for most of my time here. I saw it dip to 60k last year and it rebounded to 75k pretty shortly after.

The fact you bought something 2 years ago and it retained 66% of its value is honestly pretty good. I coulda sold my Mrylokar Pants for 200k before Velious. *cries*

If it means anything, I went hiero + seahorse on my paladin

Seahorse + hiero or seahorse + maelstrom if you want to save a bit more pp